The German Defense Ministry said on Saturday it was investigating possible wiretapping of confidential conversations between senior officers in its air force about the war in Ukraine.
“We are checking whether communications with the air force were intercepted, the military counterintelligence (BAMAD) has taken all necessary measures,” a ministry spokesman told AFP.
The case came to light after what closely resembled a recording of a conversation between German officers was broadcast on Russian social media accounts close to the Kremlin, according to German media.
The latter speak in particular of the hypothesis of the use of German-made Taurus-type long-range missiles by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and their possible effects, especially if they were to attack targets such as the Crimean Bridge connecting the Kerch Peninsula. Crimea to the west and Russian territory.
Experts interviewed by the weekly newspaper “Der Spiegel” considered the recording to be authentic.
Ukraine has long demanded that Germany supply these missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers, but Berlin has so far refused on the grounds that there is a risk of an escalation of the conflict.
“If this story turns out to be true, it would be highly problematic,” the chairman of the intelligence monitoring committee in the Bundestag, Konstantin von Notz, told the RND group newspapers.
“The question arises as to whether this is an exceptional case or a structural security problem” within the Bundeswehr, he added.
Roderich Kiesewetter, defense expert for the main opposition CDU (Conservative) party, estimated that “the conversion of Russia was deliberately spread at that very moment with a very specific aim,” namely to nip the debate in Germany in the bud over the supply of Taurus Rockets to Kiev.
“Other conversations were certainly heard and will be broadcast later in the interests of Russia,” he told ZDF.
According to Spiegel, the discussion between officials lasted half an hour and was based on a video conference on the public WebEx platform and not on a secret internal network, which raises questions about the Bundeswehr's internal security standards.